Presented by the American Cinematheque and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Advances in digital technology and a desire to provide audiences with immersive experiences have pushed 3-D from specialty theaters to neighborhood multiplexes in recent years. Though the last decade has seen an explosion of 3-D films, efforts to bring depth to movie visuals go back a full century – the first public presentation of a 3-D motion picture occurred on June 10, 1915.

About halfway between that initial screening at New York’s Astor Theatre and recent hits such as INCREDIBLES 2 and BLACK PANTHER, 3-D experienced its first big boom as studios scrambled to put something in theaters to compete with the then-new medium of television. BWANA DEVIL kicked off an era that had viewers across the country donning cardboard glasses and ducking for cover as various objects seemingly shot out from the screen. This golden age of 3-D lasted just a few years in the early 1950s before theater owners tired of the requirements of the dual-strip format – two projectors running in perfect synch – and turned to other potential audience-grabbers such as CinemaScope.

If the paddle-ball and yo-yo tricks of HOUSE OF WAX and THE MAD MAGICIAN (both starring 3-D MVP Vincent Price) occasionally have the feel of a sideshow, 3-D films also were being made for more sophisticated tastes. Along with movie monsters like the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, musicals (KISS ME KATE) and crime films (MAN IN THE DARK, INFERNO) also made good use of an extra dimension onscreen, and even the great Alfred Hitchcock (DIAL M FOR MURDER) tried his hand at 3-D during the glory days of the format.

After the success of STAR WARS and other summer blockbusters revealed the power of a teen audience primed for multiple viewings, 3-D experienced a renaissance in the 1980s. Genre films were particularly well represented in this second wave of 3-D, from horror franchises including FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III and AMITYVILLE 3-D to such sci-fi quests as SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE and METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN. Killer critters have always managed to jolt audiences as they jump from the screen, and along with ROTTWEILER, our 3-D menagerie includes the great white shark of JAWS 3-D and the titular terror of THE MEG; in a sneak preview of the new thriller, a 75-foot shark targets a deep-sea submersible for destruction.

This series is presented in conjunction with the LACMA exhibition 3D: Double Vision, on display through March 31, 2019. 3D: Double Vision is the first North American survey of 3D objects and practices. Featuring artifacts of mass culture alongside historical and contemporary art, the exhibition addresses the nature of perception, the allure of illusionism and our relationship to accompanying technologies and apparatuses as it traces the generational cycles of 3D across 175 years.

Film series compiled by Grant Moninger. Program notes by John Hagelston. Special thanks to Jeff Joseph and Eric Kurland.